Why would you want to jail break your phone? Why not? Doesn’t cost you anything, won’t damage it. Will allow you to  run a  host of great applications and make use of some features that Apple has left locked. Why have they done this? Not for your benefit, but so they can negotiate contracts that force you to buy their products or use their app store and ultimately just increase their income.

Is it illegal? Certainly not in the UK! You are not stealing, you are not hacking into someone else’s system. You own your iPhone, you are just modifying it. True Apple would like you not to, but they cannot do anything about it.

So how do I unlock my iPhone to the world of goodies? I might here you ask. This is pretty simple thanks to those great people over at the iPhone Dev Team. First you’ll need to download redsn0w. This can be found here.

When it’s ready, extract the files to a location of your choice. Remember, if you are using Windows Vista or 7, you will need to put the application in XP compatibility mode and give it administrator rights otherwise you will get the “redsn0w.exe has stopped working” error and it will crash during the upgrade. This can be done by right clicking on the executable file and selecting the compatibility tab on properties.

The next thing you’ll need to do is upgrade your iPhone to 3.0 in itunes if you haven’t already. When it’s all updated and ready, plug the phone into your PC by USB and then switch it off. Now run redsn0w.

You’ll be asked for an IPSW file in the process. This is the 3.0 software that you will already have downloaded in iTunes and can be found in the “AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates” folder within your user directory (parent of My Documents).

Follow the instructions given and with luck, your system should be unlocked (jailbroken) within 5 mins or so. Once unlocked, run the newly installed Cydia application and I’d recommend installing the following packages under the ‘Featured Packages’ section of the home screen:

BossPrefs – Configure your phone easily

MobileFinder – File management

SBSettings – One touch access to WIFI on off and other settings

OpenSSH – Secure access to your iPhone from your PC to upload files etc

There are many other wonders to be found in Cydia. Good luck!

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